By Nelson Schneider - 11/10/24 at 02:20 PM CT
Oh, Nintendo. We love Nintendo, don’t we folks? Yeah, they were the company that rebuilt console gaming after the 1983 Crash. They were the company whose developers, led by the likes of Shigeru Miyamoto and Satoru Iwata, created some of the best, brightest, and most memorable IPs in gaming, frequently carving out whole new genres, but always, at least, iterating on what came before in novel and positive ways.
That Nintendo is a relic of the past, however. Today’s Nintendo isn’t a Good Guy or a company that produces great games out of a passion for entertaining. Rather, it’s just another corporate monolith, fussing over money and possessed by an insane obsession with wringing every nickel possible out of the things created by its most passionate (and frequently ex- or late) employees.
Thus we come to the latest news out of Nintendoland that the company is introducing a music streaming app to its already bloated, poorly-designed, and overpriced stable of subscription features. Nintendo has long been protective of its musical IPs, frequently flagging and filing DMCA takedowns against user-created videos that include Nintendo chiptunes as background music. The MeltedJoystick Crew was fortunate that our viral WiiU Funeral video – which re-used Nintendo sound effects, not music, didn’t attract the Japanese dragon’s covetous eye. But there were always viable Fair Use arguments to be made, and it’s not like Nintendo’s vast library of videogame soundtracks was a market product…
…But now it IS a market product, and I’m not alone in fearing that the House of Mario will send forth legions of copyright lawyers to suffocate and strangle anyone who dares to share their love of Nintendo’s musical heritage with others.
But even worse than that, Nintendo is always behind the times when it comes to corporate trends and gross overreach, and plays catch-up in the most awkward and cumbersome solutions. With this instance, they seem to be ahead of the curve for once… so we can look forward to the other Japanese game publishers who own the IP rights to the soundtracks of our lives and of gaming history following suit and releasing their own silo’d walled-gardens while suppressing any sharing of their art that doesn’t directly generate revenue.
